In DC-DC buck converters, the output capacitor Equivalent Series Resistance (ESR) introduces a left-hand plane zero in converter's transfer function. The zero influences the loop response therefore must be taken into account in compensator design. Otherwise, the system could suffer from low speed, less phase margin or even instability. Since the end customers may use different types of capacitors, the ESR value is not always known/certain during the board design phase. Even for capacitors with known ESRs, their values vary significantly due to tolerances and temperature. Therefore, the application engineers usually have to go through a tedious process of reconfiguring the compensation networks iteratively.
Digital control of dc-dc switch mode power supply has gradually matured over the past 10 years. One of the most attractive features of digital control is the online system identification and auto-compensation. Component variations of the power stage are identified and compensator is redesigned/retuned accordingly to achieve the desired dynamic response. Most of the existing Process Identifier (PID) auto-tuning methods focus on identifying the power stage corner frequency. Another important variable, capacitor ESR zero frequency, is seldom considered or modeled.
In one prior art system, PID compensator design is based on a complete frequency domain identification including the ESR zero. However, the method requires open-loop operation and heavy computations. Therefore, it is not suitable for online operation in low-power cost-effective applications.